No Sympathy for Terminus or the Freaks

On two of the TV shows I watch, there are some characters that I just cannot find sympathetic. Spoilers ahead.

I loved the season premier of The Walking Dead. The liberation from Terminus was thrilling (OMG Carol) and the reunions at the end were gratifying, especially with Judith. There was also some intrigue with the reappearance of the guy from the pilot and “Clear.”

However, I can’t muster sympathy for the people who ran Terminus. What happened to them in the past at the camp was wrong but they dealt with it in the wrong way. They could have escaped, made sure their captors couldn’t hurt anyone else and gone on with their lives. Instead, they became the new dictators, luring people in with the promise of safety before slitting their throats and eating them. Rick and the gang have killed the living but it was always in self-defense. They never laid a trap for anyone.

The one Terminus woman (Mary?) told Carol “You’re either the butcher or you’re the cattle,” which I guess is this season’s theme. Not having it, Carol busted a cap in the woman’s hip. Mary bragged about the great thing they’d built at Terminus and Carol’s answer (it bears repeating — OMG Carol) was to open the door and let the zombies eat her. It was as if she was saying, “This is how societies like yours end up. This is what you deserve.”

It was a brutal end but the difference between the two groups is that Rick and company will not move into Terminus and take over and do something just as awful. They’ll just want it gone.

We’re either the butcher or the cattle? Maybe I’m just being unusually optimistic but I disagree. Even in that world, I think people would have an obligation to be shrewd enough to survive but also hold onto their humanity. Maybe a more realistic slogan would be “Don’t be a doormat but don’t lure people to their death and cannibalize them.”

I don’t even know if The Walking Dead wants us to have sympathy for the butchers of Terminus. Maybe the flashbacks were just about explaining how those people got to that point, without approving of it. I can’t look at those torsos stripped for meat, and believe they’re anything but the result of an evil act — committed by people who did have a choice.

I’m also not feeling a whole lot of sympathy for the titular freaks of American Horror Story: Freak Show. It’s only one episode (I didn’t see last night’s yet) but I’m not on board with these people yet. The conjoined twins killed their mother because she wouldn’t take them to the movies. When a police officer tried to arrest them for murder, Lobster Boy killed him. So that’s two murders in cold blood. Not a great way to get me on your side.

Yeah, I get it — the people outside the circus are the real freaks and they’ve treated the circus folks terribly and we’re all a little freaky and who are we to judge them. The thing is, most of us never killed a cop or killed our mothers for not taking us to see Singing in the Rain. So we’ve got that going for us.